Framingham State buys another property

FRAMINGHAM - Framingham State University has snapped up another property on the edge of campus, this time a vacant manufacturing building on Mayhew Street.

The site, listed as 9-11 Mayhew St. in state land records, cost just over $1 million.

Dale Hamel, Framingham State's executive vice president of administration, finance, and information technology, said the building, formerly home to a company in Holliston that makes temperature sensors and related products, will house the university's facilities department.

The facilities offices need to move out of their current home on campus in a house on Maynard Road that is scheduled to be torn down next spring to make way for a new dorm. The acquisition of the Mayhew Street property is part of that estimated $37 million construction project, Hamel said.

In the short-term, the university will have to do minimal renovations to the Mayhew facility to prepare it for the move, Hamel said.

"We'll have to do some work between now and March," he said. "But the front end of the building is all office space."

Framingham State is also bringing in an architect this fall to help figure out what to do with the rest of the facility, which was used as manufacturing space by the NANMAC Corp. Hamel said the section of the building could be used as art labs, for example, but the university won't know for sure until it finds out the cost of an overhaul.

Any money spent on the Mayhew site beyond the purchase of the property will have to come from Framingham State, he added. The school is financing the new dorm through the Massachusetts State College Building Authority, which pays for projects with rent and fees from students who use the facilities.

The building authority also purchased the Mayhew property on behalf of Framingham State. The acquisition joins a list of properties the authority has bought for the university along Salem End Road since last March, most of which will be used by FSU as a new parking lot. The latest purchase brings the total cost of that expansion to around $8.7 million.

The new parking lot, which will add 262 spaces on the western edge of campus, is intended in part to replace 130 parking spaces that will be lost to the new dorm. The 286-bed residence hall will be built in Framingham State's Maynard Road lot, currently the largest parking area on campus.

Pending the university's receipt of a final state permit, Hamel said construction of the Salem End Road parking lot will likely begin after this week. Part of the work will involve demolishing the non-historic sections of a building at 1000 Worcester Road generally referred to as the 1812 House. The significant portion of the structure will be preserved and used by Framingham State as a college planning center for local high school students.

Page 2 of 2 - Scott O'Connell can be reached at 508-626-4449 or soconnell@wickedlocal.com. Follow him on Twitter: @ScottOConnellMW